![The word and term 'it' can be used for either a subject or an object in a sentence and can describe
any physical or psychological subject and/or object. The genitive form its has been used to refer to human
babies and animals, although with the passage of time this usage has come to be considered too impersonal
in the case of babies, as it may be thought to demean a conscious being to the status of a mere object.
Examples:-
The baby had its first apple.
"It" is still used for idiomatic phrases such as Is it a boy or a girl? Once the gender of the child has been
established, the speaker or writer then switches to gender-specific pronouns.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge proposed using "it" in a wider sense in all the situations where a gender-neutral
pronoun might be desired:
Explaination:-whether we may not, nay ought not, to use a neutral pronoun, relative or
representative, to the word "Person," where it hath been used in the sense of homo, mensch, or
noun of the common gender, in order to avoid particularising man or woman, or in order to
express either sex indifferently? If this be incorrect in syntax, the whole use of the word Person
is lost in a number of instances, or only retained by some stiff and strange position of the words,
as—"not letting the person be aware wherein offense has been given"—instead of—"wherein he
or she has offended." In my [judgment] both the specific intention and general etymon of
"Person" in such sentences fully authorise the use of it and which instead of he, she, him, her,
who, whom.
—Anima Poetæ: From the Unpublished Note-Books of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, edited by
Ernest Hartley Coleridge (1895), p. 190. ["Homo" and "Mensch" are Latin and German words
respectively which mean `man' in a general sex-neutral sense, as opposed to "vir" and "Mann",
which mean `man' in the specifically masculine sense.]
The children's author E. Nesbit consistently wrote in this manner, often of mixed groups of children:
"Everyone got its legs kicked or its feet trodden on in the scramble to get out of the carriage." (Five
Children and It, p. 1).
In earlier Middle English, arising from Old English, the pronoun was hit (similar to Dutch "het" and West
Frisian "hit" with the same meaning), with the unaspirated it being an unaccented form.
The genitive was his, with the new form its only arising by analogy in later Middle English.
The pronoun it also serves as a place-holder subject in sentences with no identifiable actor, such as "It
rained last night.", "It boils down to what you're interested in.", or the impersonal "It was a dark and
stormy night." Such usage in conversation or casual writing is acceptable. However, in serious prose,
starting a sentence with it is sometimes avoided.[2]
In the latter example, a different construction might be
"The night was dark and stormy." The exception for starting a sentence with it would be when the referred
object is evident in the prior sentence, as in, for example, "I met her last night. It was dark and stormy."
References
1)[Pollard and Sag, 1994] Carl Pollard and Ivan Sag. Head–Driven Phrase Structure
Grammar. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1994.
2)[Rodgers, 2000] Henry Rodgers. The Sounds of Language: An Introduction to
Phonetics. Pearson ESL, 2000.
3) From the lecture of Prof. Nazir Muhammad.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/morphologyandsyntax-181113165828/85/Morphology-and-syntax-6-320.jpg)
Morphology and syntax
- 1. Title; Linguistics Submitted by :- Sohaib Israr Roll Number :- 413 Department :- English Subject :- Morphology & Syntax Submitted to :- Prof. Nazir Muhammad Institution:- Government Post Graduate College Mardan
- 2. CONTENTS TABLE; 1) Difference between the Traditional and syntactic definition of phrase with Arguments. 2) How does meaning depend on the context discourse. 3) How does the organization of sentence is possible for mind for its meaning. 4) How does phonology effect a sentence meaning. 5) The use of “it” in the sentence. 1)Difference between the Traditional and syntactic definition of phrase with Augruments. Traditional definition of Phrase:- Often, the expression "X phrase", when encountered in a traditional grammar book means something acting "in place of" X. In other words it's a label of function, not form. Thus an "adjective phrase" means any phrase that modifies a noun, regardless of its form Example:- The definition of traditional is something that is in keeping with long-standing tradition, style or custom. An example of traditional is the practice of eating turkey as the traditional or accepted Thanksgiving meal. Syntactic definition of phrase :-In grammatical analysis, particularly in theories of syntax, a phrase is any group of words, or sometimes a single word, which plays a particular role within the grammatical structure of a sentence A “syntactic phrase” is defined as a word sequence that is covered by a single sub- tree in a syntactic parse tree
- 3. Example:- The syntactic category of the head is used to name the category of the phrase; for example, a phrasewhose head is a noun is called a noun phrase. ... too slowly — Adverb phrase (AdvP); the head is an adverb. very happy — Adjective phrase (AP); the head is an adjective Arguments 1. He saw a white house. 2. He saw a house white. The above sentences give us different meanings. 2)How does meaning depend on the context discourse Definition of Context:-Different linguists seek to define context from different point of view in order to answer questions encountered in their own fields, and to support their own ideas and theories. when focusing his study on language meaning, thought “context” as “those aspects of the circumstance of actual language use which are taken as relevant to meaning.” He further pointed out, “in other words, context is a schematic construct... the achievement of pragmatic meaning is a matter of matching up the linguistic elements of the code with the schematic elements of the context.”( H. G. Widdowson) Explaination Meaning depend on the context discourse. Linguistic context refers to the context within the discourse, that is, the relationship between the words, phrases, sentences and even paragraphs. Take the word “bachelor” as an example. We can't understand the exact meaning of the sentence “He is a bachelor.” without the linguistic context to make clear the exact meaning of this word. Linguistic context can be explored from three aspects: deictic, co-text, and collocation. In a language event, the participants must know where they are in space and time, and these features relate directly to the deictic context, by which we refer to the deictic expressions like the time expressions now, then, etc., the spatial expressions here, there, etc., and the person expressions I, you, etc... Deictic expressions help to establish deictic roles which
- 4. derive from the fact that in normal language behavior the speaker addresses his utterance to another person and may refer to himself, to a certain place, or to a time. In recent years, some linguists began to pay attention to the previous discourse co-ordinate. Levis introduces this co-ordinate to take account of the aforementioned sentences. It is the case that any sentence other than the first in a fragment of discourse, will have the whole of its interpretation forcibly constrained by the preceding text, not just those phrases which obviously and specifically refer to the preceding text. The interpretations of the words which occur in discourse are constrained by, following Halliday, their co-text. In 1934, Porzig argued for the recognition of the importance of syntagmatic relations, between, e.g., bite and teeth, bark and dog, blond and hair, which Firth called collocation. Collocation is not simply a matter of association of ideas. Although milk is white, we should not often say white milk, while the expression white paint is common enough. CONCLUSION:- We have talked about the definition, classification, and role of context in discourse analysis from different aspects. However, it is certain that the list can go on as further study deepens. In a word, context plays a very important role in discourse analysis. A discourse and its context are in close relationship: the discourse elaborates its context and the context helps interpret the meaning of utterances in the discourse. The knowledge of context is a premise of the analysis of a discourse. When we study and analyze a discourse, we should bear in mind that no context, no discourse and we should not neglect the related context of a discourse. 3)How does the organization of sentence is possible for mind for its meaning. Definition of Organization of Sentence:- It refers to the act of putting things into a logical order or the act of taking an efficient and orderly approach to tasks, or a group of people who have formally come together. Abrivation:- organization. or·gan·i·za·tion. Use organization in a sentence. The organization of sentence mean that what is the structure of sentence. Examples of organization in a Sentence She is the leader of an internationalorganization devoted to the protection of natural resources. He has been working on the organization of his notes into an outline. She is responsible for theorganization of the party. Explaination:- In linguistics organization is possible for its meaning by applying Tree Diaghram to that sentence A) The young boys really like video games. B) The girls are pleased with the good news.
- 5. 4)How does phonology effect a sentence meaning. phonology is essentially the description of the system and pattern of speech sounds in a language. it is, in effect based on a theory of what every speaker of a language unconsciously knows about the sound patterns of that language. Because of this theoretical status, phonology is concerned with the abstract or mental aspect of the sound in language rather than with the actual physical articulation of speech sound. phonology effect a sentence meaning because phonology is the study of classification of speech sound. For example:- If somebody Ask to someone that (How are you?) and he/she reply that I am pine instead of fine. Pine /p/ sound Fine /f/ sound So it will create wrong Answer because Fine means Good while pine means an evergreen coniferous tree having clusters of long needle-shaped leaves, grown for its soft wood or for tar and turpentine. Conclusion:- From the above idea we got that if we pronounce a wrong word in a sentence. So it will change the whole concept mean that pronunciation of a single word also effect the whole sentence. 5)The use of “it” in the sentence.
- 6. The word and term 'it' can be used for either a subject or an object in a sentence and can describe any physical or psychological subject and/or object. The genitive form its has been used to refer to human babies and animals, although with the passage of time this usage has come to be considered too impersonal in the case of babies, as it may be thought to demean a conscious being to the status of a mere object. Examples:- The baby had its first apple. "It" is still used for idiomatic phrases such as Is it a boy or a girl? Once the gender of the child has been established, the speaker or writer then switches to gender-specific pronouns. Samuel Taylor Coleridge proposed using "it" in a wider sense in all the situations where a gender-neutral pronoun might be desired: Explaination:-whether we may not, nay ought not, to use a neutral pronoun, relative or representative, to the word "Person," where it hath been used in the sense of homo, mensch, or noun of the common gender, in order to avoid particularising man or woman, or in order to express either sex indifferently? If this be incorrect in syntax, the whole use of the word Person is lost in a number of instances, or only retained by some stiff and strange position of the words, as—"not letting the person be aware wherein offense has been given"—instead of—"wherein he or she has offended." In my [judgment] both the specific intention and general etymon of "Person" in such sentences fully authorise the use of it and which instead of he, she, him, her, who, whom. —Anima Poetæ: From the Unpublished Note-Books of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, edited by Ernest Hartley Coleridge (1895), p. 190. ["Homo" and "Mensch" are Latin and German words respectively which mean `man' in a general sex-neutral sense, as opposed to "vir" and "Mann", which mean `man' in the specifically masculine sense.] The children's author E. Nesbit consistently wrote in this manner, often of mixed groups of children: "Everyone got its legs kicked or its feet trodden on in the scramble to get out of the carriage." (Five Children and It, p. 1). In earlier Middle English, arising from Old English, the pronoun was hit (similar to Dutch "het" and West Frisian "hit" with the same meaning), with the unaspirated it being an unaccented form. The genitive was his, with the new form its only arising by analogy in later Middle English. The pronoun it also serves as a place-holder subject in sentences with no identifiable actor, such as "It rained last night.", "It boils down to what you're interested in.", or the impersonal "It was a dark and stormy night." Such usage in conversation or casual writing is acceptable. However, in serious prose, starting a sentence with it is sometimes avoided.[2] In the latter example, a different construction might be "The night was dark and stormy." The exception for starting a sentence with it would be when the referred object is evident in the prior sentence, as in, for example, "I met her last night. It was dark and stormy." References 1)[Pollard and Sag, 1994] Carl Pollard and Ivan Sag. Head–Driven Phrase Structure Grammar. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1994. 2)[Rodgers, 2000] Henry Rodgers. The Sounds of Language: An Introduction to Phonetics. Pearson ESL, 2000. 3) From the lecture of Prof. Nazir Muhammad.
- 7. The End